G2A For games?

So I've seen a lot of games on Steam selling for 19.99 like bioshock and a ton of others, but some site called G2A is saying it has Steam game codes for like 4 dollars. That seems too good to be true? are sites like that scams or are the legit? I don't feel like paying 20 dollars for a game that came out in 2007 lol.

I only own like 5 total PC games and I want to expand my library.

Has anyone used websites like this to get steam codes and had a positive experiece? I just don't want to get ripped off.

 

I bought games from G2A and CDKeys, mostly new(ish) releases. So far so good, haven't had any issues.
I heard that some people had trouble with their keys registering as elegit, but luckily I haven't experienced that so far.

 

Its mostly fine, the only issue was a couple scandals where the sellers stole the keys, but that was a specific incident. They are legal otherwise, and should be fine to buy from, I have multiple times and have had no issues.

 

if you wanna buy games at discount price, Game deals on reddit is a pretty good place. G2A is banned or something on reddit I think. I saw it there before but not recently.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedeals

also here to check game price history.

https://isthereanydeal.com/

 

That's because G2A is technically gray market. /r/gamedeals and ITAD only list legit sellers so the stores they show are safe.

 

I buy more games from G2A than I do from Valve.

 

I've bought a few games from them too. No qualms.
With any of these kind of 3rd party key sites sites I'll ask for my money back if they try and ask for ID after taking money. They often try this. Totally unnecessary and I don't trust any of them with it. They can go jump. Having said that I think G2A is ok like this.

 

Buy from cjs cdkeys, I've gotten bf4, bf hardline, and gta v, instant delivery for key, and great prices.

 

I won't buy from any of those places. Last thing I need is my 600+ steam game collection to get closed because I wanted to save $10.

 

Its not technically legit to get products from those sites and there have been cases where they were able to claim someone's entire Steam account because while they sent you the barcode, they had the original box it came from. I really wouldn't risk it... Check out sales on Bundle Stars, Green Man Gaming, and watch for trends on https://steamdb.info/sales/ to find the best deals. Reddit is a good place too although I personally dislike that site in general.

How these sites work is they buy copies of a game from a poorer country or a country where the currency they use (generally dollar, euro, pound) is heavily favored over their own currency and sell them at a profit to US, UK, and EU who generally pay through the nose in comparison. They're generally boxed copies bought in bulk and they send you a picture of the barcode in your email, you add it to your account, and you own the game but there are all kinds of other shenanigans too like some games requiring you to use a VPN and all kinds of shady business. As far as I'm concerned, it should be an illegal practice.

 

In case of G2A it's not true, because you are shown which region and/or platform the key is for.

 

I heard they also buy keys using stolen credit cards and then sell the keys on G2A for a profit, but I'm not sure if that was like a one time thing that happened and doesn't normally happen there.

 

Which should tell you something. It means that they are buying from regions based on how cheap things are and selling for a profit. G2A is actually an entire marketplace, I just went and checked it out. Its a lot like eBay for game codes...

 

To try it out, I bought an Xbox Live 12M prepaid code since mine was about to expire and those get shuffled all over anyway... I had to jump through hoops like pick a seller, pay their G2A shield fee, pay a fee for not giving them my credit card info and using PayPal, then they reversed the fee for my signing up for their G2A Shield subscription service... Which I'm now going to cancel but then hit me with $1.08 fees on the PayPal purchase. For what its worth, I got the code in less than a minute and it did indeed extend my subscription another year but the whole thing seemed really shady to me. You can't beat 12 months of Xbox Live for 28 bucks though.

What's also funny is that I paid less than they advertise it for on Google by picking one of the sellers instead of choosing their price which would have been 33 with the shield and fee. I just decided to see what the going rate on the cards was lol.

 

I'm having trouble understanding these sentences.

 

Just go take a look at their sellers. I bought my Xbox code from a seller in Poland. My bet is that the demand for expensive Xbox Live subscriptions isn't very high in Poland... In fact in the description for the product before I even picked the seller, I noted that it says PL/EU/NA so I figured that it was a Polish code. Its shady but not technically illegal. The only reason I did it for the Xbox code is because a) I already needed it (mine expires next month) so I'd be hunting for it anyway and b) Microsoft knows what's going on with Xbox Live cards and has never made any moves to stop them unlike Sony.

 

Interesting thing is that such kind of stuff in retail costs a lot of money here too, as much as in US or wealthy EU countries, usually even more. In my part of the world, where there's very small console segment and legit games aren't the most popular things to buy, you would think that they would sell for less, but it's not the case.
For example, on a local e-store XBox Live 1 year subscription costs slightly above 60EUR, while German Amazon has it for 51EUR.
Speaking about Amazon, how is it exactly different from that? They also sell Xbox Live/etc. themselves or 3rd parties. Should they be called shady too? True that G2A has all that checkout nonsense, but I personally don't see a lot of difference. You pay, get the code, move along.
I also don't see why Microsoft should do something about it, just like Sony. They sell their keys, someone buys them in big volumes for, let's say, $20 a pop, puts an additional fiver on top. G2A and GayPal each squeeze in a dollar, and voila - you have your Xbox Live subscription for $27!
MS happy, seller happy, G2A and GayPal are happy, and most importantly you are happy. Everyone wins, right?

 

MSRP varies by region and like I said, they probably play the currency vs currency game to get something a local might have had to pay the same in their currency (the way the manufacturer meant for it to be done) but instead someone swoops in with a strong currency and buys in bulk, gives a little off the top to the store, then sells on these markets. I guess in the end its up to you but if you're going to buy things like Steam keys and such, I'd have a separate Steam account for those. Just me. No chance someone will be able to claim my Xbox account, my Microsoft account has two-factor authentication and I have the two authenticators so there's my proof right there.

There's a huge price difference among G2A and related sites and online e-tailers like Amazon so comparing the two makes no sense. Amazon is sometimes more expensive than going to the store...

 

But it's not like MSRP is different in every single country. For example Poland and Germany share the same MSRP, or rather should on such stuff, because it's the same EU market. Now what you've said is true, Poland has a different currency, so that definitely comes into play. But when you look at a price difference between a seller from Poland and Germany, it's not that big, 3-5EUR.
I wonder, does G2A charge 30% market fee? Because if not, that could be one of the bigger reasons why games there cost less.

How? You aren't giving them any Steam info. How would they steal your account?
Unless they somehow magically get a hold of your Steam ID and hack it (or e-mail, which they do have). But Steam now also has a two step verification, at least that was the reason why I gave them my phone number.

I honestly don't see the reason why the two couldn't be compared - both sell stuff on the Internet.

 

I am not going to continue this argument since it is obvious we will remain in disagreement. I don't mind the fact that I just spent half of what Microsoft wants to charge me because I can't stand Microsoft but if it was a developer that I like, I'd never go through one of these sites but the bottom line is that someone is getting hurt along the way and my guess is that high prices for the rest of us have something to do with underground markets like this. I get the feeling we are going to start seeing real region locks as in - USA and Canada only, EU only, etc to stop this sort of thing.

 

FWIW Polygon has a piece on these code resellers. Supposedly Kinguin is less shady than G2A but frankly to me they're all the same. That said, I do use Kinguin over G2A (mainly due to less cluttered and "in-your-face" layout), and thus far haven't had any problems. I mean I just can't say no to Mad Max for $16!

I wouldn't mind buying Ubisoft games exclusively through Kinguin/G2A though, since Ubisoft despises PC gamers anyway so screw them. Although they have started cracking down on this so will have to be careful.

 

That article is exactly my problem with this shady business... How very shocked that dev must have been to find out the source of the key.......

 

what about gamesdeal.com?

 

I would as far as say, right now Kinguin is my favorite, go to, and #1 source for games. I bought 95% of games in the last year from Kinguin for Blizzard, Origin, Steam and Uplay. No issues. And I've had keys 100% work and within a minute of purchasing. I prefer Kinguin over Steam right now.

 

I've found cdkeys.com not to be as shady as G2A, Kingun etc.. They are a single seller, London based and their prices are good.. Heard only good things about them..

 

Kinguin is only one letter away from Kingpin; food for thought

 

Well l hope region locking doesn't get tightened. Some people like myself are in between countries. I had a bit of trouble with Steam since I'm sometimes using an Australian store when I visit home and the Japanese store otherwise. There's a legitimate case for being able to pay a certain regions price at times. I assume this paradox is what keeps these sites grey methods alive.

 

if i have to go grey market then it's either cjs-cdkeys.com or cdkeyhouse.com.

 

GMG banned from /r/GameDeals (again)

 

I tend to agree with GmG. Just because you're not "authorized" by the publisher means squat. It just means you don't buy direct from the publisher. Last I knew that's how most businesses operate. Manufacturer makes product, sells it to major distributor, distributor sells to reseller or another distributor. Manufacturer will only see who they sell to, not who their distributor sells to. Whether game publishers indicate games can't be resold by a third party unless authorized by the publisher, I don't know, and don't know if that was ever asked by subreddit.

The demands are a bit high to show a copy of their contract with companies they do business with, redacted or not. In most companies that will get you fired, unless it's coming direct from the CEO, and even then it's almost like blackmail.

I don't deny that there may be some shady transactions going on, but if the intent is good, and they believe their sources are good, and respond promptly to refunds of invalid game keys, I think they're still reputable. It's like if you bought something with a $50 bill you just withdrew from an ATM, and the clerk says it's counterfeit. Well you just take it back and pay with another legit $50 bill, does that make you a criminal or shady?

 

In digital game sales, this disqualifies you from being legit. It's within the publisher's discretion to blacklist such keys.

 

OK. But it's not illegal or shady IMHO. I don't trust publishers as far as I can throw a semi truck. I can understand not supporting a product because it wasn't purchased from an "authorized source" but to not allow you to use it is probably illegal as long as it's not stolen or sold multiple times. First Sale Doctrine.

 

WHAT ABOUT BONANZA?

 

STOP ASKING ABOUT PLACES NOBODY'S EVER HEARD OF

 

Well, I guess OP got his answer.

I also heard this guy sells some legit keys:


You also receive some candy along with your purchase .

 

I had a problem back in the day with a G2A purchase, bought Battlefield Hardline and played it for like 3 weeks and suddenly my game profile got deleted and also the game from my library. After a few months got my money back cause the key that I bought was stolen.

 

Greetings,

We are a legit website, though please remember that we do not function as a typical store with games. We are a Marketplace - like eBay - where our external, independent Sellers may offer their keys. We have security means set up for the keys being posted, though we cannot guarantee 100% efficiency of this check - no security system is bulletproof. This is why we have set up a number of solutions for our Buyers to protect them from any issues with bought keys. The Resolution Center is the most commonly accessible one - it is available for everyone and it allows the Buyer to contact the Seller directly with our team managing the conversation and helping in the resolution.

We also strongly recommend purchasing the Shield protection for your orders - this way we will be able to offer even more solutions with an even faster resolution of the issue. The Shield may be purchased twofold - either as a one-time protection for your offer, or as a subscription plan for a small monthly fee.

If you have any further questions or doubts, keep in mind that you can always find additional information on G2A's FAQ or by contacting us on live chat or ticket. Our consultants are there for you 24/7.

See you again at G2A

Max G2A Team

 

I've found cdkeys.com to be more competitive price wise and safer compared to G2A.. They are UK based too so more reliable IMO

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

 

I've bought a small number of keys from G2A with no issues. It depends on how much cheaper than just buying it outright on steam is whether I do it or not. Also depends on how much I like the dev/publisher, sometimes I want to give them another sale instead of grabbing an already in the wild key.

Sent from a 128th Legion Stormtrooper 6P